


Halfway There

by BrosleCub12



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, Post-Season/Series 04, Suggestion of Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 08:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13232379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrosleCub12/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: The violin-bow shrieks in alarm against the strings at a particularly violent crackle and John can’t just stand by and do nothing.





	Halfway There

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year, Sherlock fandom. ^_^ I started writing this last night and finished it today; no Sherlock this particular New Year's Day (of course having it on the past two years in a row was just spoiling us slightly, ha). Wishing you all a very merry 2018, hoping for good things for each and every one of you and a big thankyou for seven years of Sherlock fun - now about to become eight! 
> 
> Warning for a slight indication of trauma on Sherlock's part, but this is mostly fluff. As per, I do not own Sherlock.

* * *

 

Sherlock twitches with every fresh blast of a firework and John doesn’t miss it.

He didn’t expect to spend New Year’s Eve first soothing his daughter, terrified by the crackling fizzes of the world outside, tinting the windowsills with light, wailing into his chest and finally soothe her to sleep – only to recognise the tense stiffness of Sherlock’s shoulders, the way he’s been gripping his violin too tightly, like a safety-blanket, knuckles white, staring at the window. Looking for danger – but not like a bloodhound seeking a scent, not the exact opposite of useless, if gentle, Toby. Just a very frightened man, an _exhausted_ man.

A man who carries far too many memories of gunshots in that Memory Palace of his – and who knows just _how_ many, after all? – and is still trying hard, so hard _despite_ that, to soothe Rosie to sleep with a harmonic lullaby, played just for her.

The violin-bow shrieks in alarm against the strings at a particularly violent crackle and John can’t just stand by and do nothing.

He wanders across, bare feet shuffling the carpet, to look at Sherlock, really look at him, take in the face, the narrowed, dilated eyes, scared and almost lost. Another new year impending and once again, Sherlock runs the risk of being stuck in his own head.

‘Here,’ John, with Rosie sleepy on his hip, reaches out and gently tugs the violin out of Sherlock’s hands. ‘Let me.’

He deposits Sherlock’s violin on the leather chair – with care, it doesn’t take a genius to know it’s the man’s only means of connecting with his little sister, his own way of finally just playing with her _(not_ that John thinks that being left out was ever a valid excuse for killing Victor Trevor and trying to kill him but it was never really about him, so he won’t say that for Sherlock’s sake) – and then, with one hand free and both of Sherlock’s now unoccupied, he wraps his hand around slim, pale, too-pale fingers _(Take my hand,_ Sherlock barks in some far-forgotten corner of his mind, their feet beating the pavement) and squeezes them, holds on tight.

_It’s fine. We’re here. You’ll be fine._

‘Come on.’ He gives a gentle tug, nods him over to the sofa – Sherlock, silent and almost sad-looking, follows him dumbly, sits down by his side as John tries to sit and settle quietly without rousing Rosie, a dead weight against his shoulder. John stays close to him, untangling their fingers and putting his palm to his back, rubbing figure-eights there.

‘It’s alright,’ he soothes, doing his best to keep his friend level and there, _with_ him. John doesn’t really want to spend New Year’s alone, with his lovely but oblivious baby as his only source of company.

And the fact is – well. He gets it, really. He really _does_ get it. There’s no forgetting that first Christmas – that first, wretched Christmas, what he thought to be his last – spent in that little bedsit, changing his sheets almost nightly. By 12.02am on January the first, 2010, he had found himself wrenched awake and attempting to huddle under the desk, his leg the only thing cruelly preventing him, listening to the blasting cheers of a city full of people who actually had something to celebrate.

Sherlock had helped with _that,_ too.

Rosie dozes against his shoulder and Sherlock, who is still being a little too quiet for John’s liking, has his eyes fixed on his goddaughter, as though she’s a point of safety – which, John reflects, she probably is. Struck by that thought, he makes an enquiring hum of a sound and when Sherlock blinks, quickly hands her over before his friend has a chance to protest.

‘Oh…’ Sherlock finds himself with a lapful of Rosie, who wriggles but doesn’t wake, much to John’s relief and he helps the detective settle her onto his stomach, her head against his beating heart.

And how glad John is that it’s _still_ beating, after all this.

He watches Sherlock’s hands clumsily wrap themselves around his daughter, one palm on her crown, the other settled against his back and smiles a little, a half-tilt of a smile as he reflects, with incredible sadness, that he had every chance of losing this this year. If he hadn’t been such a selfish, inconsiderate prat… If things had been different, well. It may well just have been him and Rosie in the end, alone in the house they shared once upon a time with Mary, the memories of her and Sherlock filling up the walls. (And John _knows_ it would have been both, without a doubt).

He huffs, lets his arm lazily slip through Sherlock’s and seek out his hand again, slotting their fingers back together to keep him anchored, propping himself against him, chin on Sherlock’s dressing gown, watching that arrogant mouth softly pressed against his daughter’s hair. Rosie shifts, nuzzles her face into his pyjama top, probably leaves a little dampness, but it makes Sherlock laugh, a little chuff trembling the blonde wisps, as fair as her mother’s.

 _How,_ John thinks, _could I ever have called him a machine?_ He wants to reach back through the months and rip up that letter, tear apart the words he was stupid enough to throw at Sherlock on a ragged piece of paper – _this is your fault, you made this happen_ – to grasp the back of his own collar and tug him away from where he’s punching Sherlock to the floor, blindly trying to break him. To destroy that number on a piece of paper in the middle of the street; to stop and remember that his marriage to Mary came at a price in the first place, not just of complete honesty and trust but nearly, so very nearly, of Sherlock’s freedom.

He watches the clock creep closer and closer to midnight, keeps his palm to Sherlock’s palm, listening to the heartbeats of the two people he loves most in the world as they continue to breathe beside him. As Sherlock comes back to himself, learning to _breathe_ again in the moment.

‘You’re okay,’ John murmurs, eventually and Sherlock grunts, but doesn’t say anything else. Which is fine, really; as long as he knows, he understands, that he’s not alone. He lets his thumb rub Sherlock’s thumb and stays close, the warmth of Sherlock’s body on his right side incredibly comforting, its own kind of muffling shock blanket against the crackles outside as he gazes into the fire, his eyes drooping against the quieter, soothing snap of the wood.

‘Happy new year, John,’ Sherlock rumbles as the clock strikes midnight and John just about manages a nod; Sherlock’s shoulder is very comfortable, after all. He’s softer than he looks – but then, he’s always been soft, deep down. It takes a little reaching to get there, but get there you do, if only you can be bothered to try. John’s got there, he’s fairly certain – Rosie more so. After all, there’s a gentle humming, like a bumblebee, reverberating around Sherlock’s chest right now, sailing from his lips and into her ear to keep her settled and sleepy.

John grins, happily, sadly, all at once.

‘Happy new year, Sherlock,’ he replies and is rewarded by Sherlock glancing his way with one of those lovely, genuine smiles that crinkle the corners of his eyes, that John hasn’t seen for so long. Resolves to make as many wisecracks as possible this year, to have Sherlock’s back, anything to coax that wonderful smile back out as many times as he can.

He’ll get it right, this time, he decides, watching Sherlock sink into the sofa, his eyes beginning to shut, the reassuring, safe weight of Rosie like a duvet cover on his chest. Then he simply watches the clock instead, the hands shifting around to one minute past the hour and into the fresh new year, the first of many minutes of chaos and cases and of always, _always_ keeping his family safe.


End file.
